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Topic: Grafting JBP in fall (Read 9694 times)

So, after a rare Sunday afternoon nap, I found myself unable to drift off to dreamland last night (on first attempt at least). I found myself watching Youtube videos, and eventually found Ryan Neil on Grafting. I don't find a lot new in the information he presents except for the part where he mentions that in Oregon, they're finding Fall to be a better time to graft than spring (IF the graft will be shielded from freezing).

Does anyone have experience with this? What cues would I look for in scion & host?

My guess, and it is only a guess. Oregon has fairly mild winters if you are on the west side of the Cascades. Sap would continue to flow in the understock, and nourish the scion all winter. Based on comments by various authors, if I read it right, pines will keep sap moving as low as 28 F. They won't be growing at all, but sap can flow (slowly) at these temperatures. So even though Oregon will dip below freezing especially at night, I don't think the west of the cascades area gets very cold at all.

I do know commercial landscape nurseries will harvest scionwood in January or Feb. Store is in cold storage (below 38 For 4 C) holding it until about bud break time for the understock they want to graft the scions too.

You are in SC, it may be much easier for you to provide a wintering site where the temperatures would stay above 23 F. If you can, there is no reason not to try fall grafting.

I took a grafting class at a landscape nursery, and one of their secondary grafting seasons is middle of August to first week or two of September. This was a Wisconsin nursery. The success rate was good, not as good as the early spring, but good enough for their commercial purposes. One reason they do grafting in the late summer, is because the spring work load does not give them enough time to everything that they need to do. Because of climate differences, late summer in Wisconsin might be the same metabolic timing as autumn grafting in Oregon.

Someone who knows more about pines should verify that either I got this more or less right, or correct me on this, because my grafting success rate right now is at about 18%. Pretty low, though for the majority of my failures I can identify what went wrong. For those, practice will correct the issue. But there are a few that failed that I thought I had done right.

I think Ryan's caveat was fall grafting is good, if the tree can be protected from freezing over the winter.

His actual words: "Right now, one of the things that's been happening lately, I don't know if its happening around the country or not, but for us in Oregon, we've realized that grafting in the fall is actually more successful than grafting in the spring."

I am going to regraft my failures from the spring this fall and compare. I am on the west coast same climate as coastal Oregon, ocean not quite as cold. Rarely do we get snow and some winters we miss frosts. See how it goes.

Wayne, I would think fall would work fine. In milder winter climates I would certainly think October-December would be as good (if not better than)January-March. Some years I would bet your pines are starting to push good at the end of February. With Approach Grafts it is a go whenever the sap isn't flowing at peak.

Peter Tea came to the Atlanta Bonsai Society today to do a couple of workshops. I was there with my big JBP to add another approach graft to the same tree that Boon had grafted in May. I had left a couple of branches undecandled for Peter to choose from.

The scion we finally chose was fairly small, so we didn't have to use staples to hold it in place, we used push pins. Not through the scion, but rather on either side of it, letting the plastic part hold the scion in place.

We had so much fun, we did two more approach grafts on another JBP. This time, they weren't on the trunk, but rather to branches to make secondary branches closer to the trunk.

And then...

We talked about "side grafting". Which is regular scion grafting. And Peter said he thought that in our Southern climate, we should be successful side grafting in the fall. The reason being that while the sap is moving, it's not moving as much as it does in spring. And excess sap movement can push the scion out, or out of position. So, the moderate sap movement in fall makes grafting work well.

And, he demonstrated his method of wrapping JBP scions in that wrap Ryan talked about. (Sorry, I forget the name of the stuff.) Ryan wraps the scion all the way, and then twists the tip end so it is completely enclosed. Then later he comes back to open it up.

Peter does something similar, but he leaves the very last tip end open. Like a half a millimeter. just to prevent excess humidity from rotting the scion. He does the same thing with juniper scions, too.

You are right. I have been fortunate to be able to meet and learn from some very talented bonsai artists recently. And I credit this site as being the primary facilitator. I would never have heard of Boon, had it not been thru this forum.

And, it was John Kirby that gave me a nudge to start doing the Intensives.

Aside: This speaks to the old proverb: "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear".

Back to grafting... This fall I intend to side graft using the parafilm (that's the wrap I couldn't remember in my last post) on a couple of more of my trees.

In the video, Ryan states that fall grafts must be kept from freezing and that spring grafts must be shielded from direct sun. I'm wondering if Ryan meant to imply that fall grafts can be exposed to sun.

I thikk he meant that one should protect the grafts from temp extremes...too hot or too cold. I've read that a grafted black pine stays in the workshop after being grafted, in japan. Think I read it on one of Peter Tea's posts on his blog

Fall grafting for me works very well in our Pacific Northwest climate. My only advice is to bring the mother plant into the greenhouse our a warmer growing environment for a month and get it going. I think it really helps.Qualicum Brian